Music Reviews

Colin Escott writes in the liner notes to this remarkable reissue that Carl Perkins met The Beatles at the wrap party for his first British tour before the fFab Four broke big in America and he accompanied them to the studio the next day where they recorded "Matchbox". Months later they recorded "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby" and "Honey Don't". Over time the group or individuals in the group recorded every song on this... Read More

A deep dive into one of the most original - now classic - records of its era, here receiving a stunning, deluxe vinyl reissue. Plus an interview with the owner of Analogue October Records, Craig Crane, who reveals some of the exciting titles he's going to be releasing in 2026.

Over the last 50 years, enough has been written about Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here that I have nothing to add about the original album other than that it’s easily my favorite Pink Floyd album and was the first vinyl LP I ever bought. It’s carefully textured but not too indulgent and meandering, and the lyrics hit the sweet spot between universality and specificity. Never before or after would the band so perfectly achieve this balance, as the earlier stuff can be... Read More

Grafting lyrics onto instrumental classical music has a rich history of success in the pop world. Most listeners happily hum Elvis and Perry Como tunes like "It's Now Or Never" and "Hot Diggity, Dog Diggity..." not having a clue about from where they originated. "Jazzed up" versions of popular songs are a well worn path down which many jazz arrangers and singers go. Here, jazz singer Tessa Souter does something far more audacious,... Read More

Despite the dozen years between 2002's break-up masterpiece Sea Change and 2014's Morning Phase, the musical gap between the two albums seemed in many ways minimal. Beck seemed to be revisiting his past. On the opener "Morning" he sings "Can we start it all over again?" On "Say Goodbye" he sings "cause these are the words we use to say goodbye". No wonder the album disappointed many fans expecting something new since... Read More

In his somewhat sparse annotation accompanying this four record set, annotator Professor Sean Wilentz wisely doesn't attempt to explain how Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, which was a good call since the more you dig, the more inexplicable it becomes. Even Dylan, when Ed Bradley interviewed him about his autobiographical book "Chronicles, Volume One" for the television news feature show formerly known as "60 Minutes", admitted he... Read More

Circumstances surrounding KISS and Casablanca Records in mid-1975 were dire. The group’s first three albums (KISS, Hotter Than Hell, Dressed to Kill) sold in horrific quantities and didn’t contain a hit single to break the group into the mainstream buying public. Having lost distribution from Warner Brothers, president Neil Bogart resorted to borrowing money from, as described by Gene Simmons, ‘people with vowels at the end of their last name,’ to keep the label... Read More

Dark Tranquillity’s hometown Gothenburg in Sweden is probably best known in the musical world as the birthplace of a particular Metal subgenre: Melodic Death Metal. Often called the “Gothenburg Sound”, it adapted the harshness of old-school Death Metal and combined it with more melodic approaches from 80s Heavy Metal bands.The band itself was founded in 1989 under the name Septic Broiler, which was changed to the current band name in 1990. The Gallery is Dark... Read More

Art Pepper’s music is not typically described as an acquired taste. For many, his melodic cool jazz compositions and brilliant alto sax solos are some of the most easily accessible jazz recordings that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Yet, Pepper’s playing is the opposite of smooth jazz. It is emotional heartfelt stuff from the school of hard knocks. One reading of his autobiography “Straight Life” will convince you of that.Born in southern... Read More

When you flip over a new vinyl copy of 25-year-old pianist Caelan Cardello’s 2025 debut album, Chapter One — his first studio release following 2023’s Rufus Reid Presents Caelan Cardello, recorded live at the 40-seat West Side showroom Klavierhaus NYC — you encounter an intriguing caveat.Despite being executive produced by Michael Fremer — audiophile leader and Tracking Angle editor-in-chief — and despite a no-corners-cut production chain that includes Duke Markos as... Read More

The Frank Sinatra juggernaut rolls on. Last up was the In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning Tone Poet reissue, which generated a large buzz and for good reasons explained in Paul Seydor's scholarly review. Before that was IMPEX's Sing and Dance With Frank Sinatra. As with the latter, the glue that binds this Sing, Inc. set together is Sinatra authority Charles L. Granata's annotation. Most remarkable about all of this Sinatra interest is that... Read More

No apologies need to be made for this musically and sonically attractive collection of contemporary Irish guitarists and their music, yet the compilation producer Cian Nugent, who also contributes a tune, felt it necessary and does so in his annotation. "Passing a Dublin tourist trap pub, the sound of a plastic piezo strum can elicit horror in the passerby". "But", he adds "the guitar can also be a tool for dreaming and mystery". And... Read More

Hair and beard turned white and wearing the same sunglasses as on 1993's Joe Harley produced The Old Songs (Audioquest AQ 1017) and otherwise looking remarkably unchanged, tenor saxophonist Bennie Wallace and friends turn in a sensual, moody set, beginning with an unusually slinky, conga line take on the old gospel warhorse "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho".With a pair of Bossa Nova classics—"How Insensitive" and "Desafinado" and... Read More

King Crimson formed, played to an estimated crowd of 500,000 at Hyde Park, birthed progressive rock on In The Court of the Crimson King, and disbanded by the end of 1969. Guitarist Robert Fripp took the reins as the group entered an interregnum. For the next two years, Crimson survived on session players and members who left almost as soon as they joined, lacking a definitive lineup to sustain the touring circuit. In The Wake of Poseidon, released in the spring of... Read More

In April 1958, Chess Records released its third LP, The Best of Muddy Waters. It was a straight up, no compromises, hard blues album, a look back to earlier days of the label when Muddy, recording classic after classic, created the template for what became Chicago Blues. But now Chess was chasing crossover, big money, pop hits, and was no longer primarily a blues label. The prior two LPs, Rock, Rock, Rock, a movie soundtrack, and After School Session, Chuck Berry’s... Read More

Vibraphonist-composer Patricia Brennan is a rare musician: a child prodigy (she started studying music in her native Mexico at age 4) who advanced through the classical world (selected to tour with the Orchestra of the Americas at 17), then won a scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music while also playing with the local Philadelphia Orchestra—and then, when she moved to New York and took up jazz, turned out to have a flair for sophisticated composition and a... Read More

Rosalìa is a Catalan singer whose musical studies focused on flamenco, but that is only one aspect of her broad and uncompromising compositional and performance abilities. Born near Barcelona in 1992, she may be more familiar as a pop performer, having produced hip-hop and reggaeton-flavoured tracks with artists like Pharrell Williams. If she is not that familiar to some North American readers today, that might change rapidly; the album “Lux” reached top ten in the... Read More

Vincent Furnier, who took on the Alice Cooper moniker after the titular group had disbanded, triumphed by releasing his first and arguably best solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare. As if going solo was entering the big unknown enough, supporting the album on the road became a huge risk. Cooper and manager Shep Gordon invested over half a million dollars of their own money into the production, making it a win-big-or-lose-everything scenario. Welcome to My Nightmare... Read More

“Some get stoned,

Some get strange,

Sooner or later, it all gets real.”

Keen listeners will recognize these lyrics from “Walk On,” a sunny number Neil Young rambles through on the middle installment of the famed “ditch” trilogy, On The Beach. But as revealed by Neil’s latest release, those words actually speak to the dark and drunk final installment: Tonight’s The Night.

Sony/Legacy, which in 2021 acquired from Warner the American rights to most of Prince’s imperial 1980s catalog, hasn’t been too active in mining his legendary vault, maybe because of issues over who actually owns what of the unreleased material and for where. (Territorial rights splits between major labels easily become an inefficient nightmare for everyone.) Aside from partnering with Warner on a super deluxe Diamonds and Pearls box set, Sony’s work has been... Read More

The enduring charm of this soundtrack and the 1/2 hour animated special associated with it—the one that everyone loves no matter age or religion—had an unusually troubled beginning. It almost wasn't produced. No one at the three networks was interested in an hour long Charlie Brown special having nothing to do with Christmas so it was trimmed to a half hour version but still in 1964 no one wanted it. But Fantasy had commissioned Vince Guaraldi to produce a... Read More